The present invention relates to surface coverings and more particularly to surface covering systems which include surface tiles and systems for joining the tiles together to form an overall surface covering.
Laminate flooring continues to grow in popularity as a flooring product due to its ease of installment as well as its performance. Furthermore, the various designs which arc available for laminate flooring also enhance its popularity with consumers since designs include wood-grain patterns, slate, marble, mosaic, granite, and the like. The use of such laminate flooring generally involves not only emulating the appearance of the slate, marble, and the like, but further requires emulating the joints which exist between the various tiles.
Conventional ways of making simulated grout tiles include using printed grout that becomes part of the overall tile product. In other words, the simulated grout is printed onto a tile along with the simulated design of the marble, slate, and the like. Another method of simulating grout tiles is to apply hot melt or liquid grout materials to fill the gap between two tiles. However, these conventional methods of simulating grout have many disadvantages. For instance, the printed grout has a fake appearance and therefore does not simulate grout very well. In particular, the printed grout is on the same plane as the tiles, and even though the grout may be embossed with a different texture, there is still no differentiation with the plane of the grout and the printed pattern such as marble or slate. In addition, printing grout along with a design of slate or marble, for instance, leads to low manufacture efficiency and yield because to cut the square tiles from a big laminate board requires expensive sensors to register the printed board to the cutting saw. Furthermore, there is little tolerance allowed with aligning the board for proper cutting and the dimensional growth of the printed paper in both longitudinal and latitudinal direction during the impregnation process makes the registration cutting even tougher.
Furthermore, with a liquid grout system, the material consists of polymers and carriers wherein the material becomes solid after the carrier is evaporated. Needless to say, there are many problems associated with liquid systems. Further, they are very labor intensive and pose a problem with clean-up since a person must manually apply this material to the gap between the material. Furthermore, there have been concerns that the liquid material can be too soft after curing and therefore may not withstand performance requirements. In addition, the intersection between four floor tiles (xe2x80x9c+xe2x80x9d intersection), can be a problem and messy since there is distortion in the liquid grout being applied. Also, some liquid fillers can cause staining of the top surface of the tiles. For instance, conventional cement base ceramic tile grout, an example of a liquid type grout material, is difficult to apply and to clean up, and the application of the grout is very labor intensive and time consuming.
With hot melt type heat weld systems, such as thermoplastics, hot melt grout is a solid material at room temperature and thus needs to be liquefied by heating. Also, there can be slight distortion at the xe2x80x9c+xe2x80x9d joints and some pin holes in the finished grout which can be unacceptable both from a visual and maintenance perspective. The pin holes are caused by the evaporation of entrapped moisture and/or gas from the extrusion process of making the hot melt rod.
Accordingly, there is a need to provide a grout system for all types of surface coverings using tiles that can overcome one or more of the difficulties described above.
A feature of the present invention is to provide a surface covering system that is inexpensive to apply and is not labor intensive.
Another feature of the present invention is to provide a surface covering system that is more realistic with respect to the grout areas, and provides a three-dimensional look.
Another feature of the present invention is to provide joints for grout which are capable of being sealed by various means, such as heat welding, solvents, adhesives, or other techniques, such as ultrasonic or electromagnetic systems.
Another feature of the present invention is to provide a system which overcomes the difficulty of applying a simulated grout look to the gap between tiles.
Additional features and advantages of the present invention will be set forth in the following description, and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the present invention. The objectives and other advantages of the present invention will be realized and obtained by means of the elements and combinations particularly pointed out in the written description and appended claims.
To achieve these and other advantages and in accordance with the purposes of the present invention, as embodied and broadly described herein, the present invention relates to a surface covering system. The surface covering system includes a series of tiles wherein each tile has at least one tongue section and at least two groove sections, for example, one tongue section and three groove sections. The tongue section of one tile interconnects with a groove section of a second tile wherein when the two tiles are interconnected a gap is formed at least on the upper surface between the two tiles. The surface covering system further includes a first spline having two tongue sections for interconnecting with the groove sections of at least two tiles. Also, the surface covering system includes a second spline capable of fitting into the gap formed by two or more tiles. This second spline is located between two or more tiles which are interconnected at a tongue of a first tile and a groove of a second tile.
The present invention further relates to a method for installing a surface covering system such as the one described above. This method of installing a surface covering system of the present invention involves connecting a series of tiles together to form a line, wherein the tiles are connected together at the tongue of one tile and the groove of another tile and so on. A tongue section of a first spline is then inserted into the grooves of two or more tiles in this series of tiles. The groove of a second series of tiles is then connected into the other tongue section of the first spline. The second series of tiles is further connected to each other to form a line by connecting the tongue of one tile to the groove of another tile and so on. The second spline is inserted into each of the gaps formed between the tiles wherein this second spline may be arranged in a perpendicular direction to the first spline when a system of square or rectangular tiles are used for the system. When other shapes of tiles are used, such as diamond-shaped tiles, the first and second splines are not necessarily perpendicular to each other. Once inserted, the second spline can be bonded, melt-bonded, adhered, or cured in order to be permanently located between the tiles.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are intended to provide further explanation of the present invention, as claimed.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this application, illustrate several embodiments of the present invention and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the present invention.